Leslie put another log on the hearth fire. He couldn’t get warm, not since he and Edward left Beachy. The coldness had seeped into his bones and was a constant reminder that he’d almost lost his life, and Edward as well. “Best not to think,” Edward had said.“Just move on.”But Leslie’s heart wasn’t in it. His heart was with Edward, his lover and life partner, who was off again on some damned mission that left Leslie stranded and sitting on the sidelines once more. Christ, Edward. I didn’t sign up for this!But he knew he had.
“Tell me what you think, Les,” Caroline said as she waltzed into the room and twirled around in front of him in a tight fitting red dress. “They call it lady love song.”
Damned good-looking woman. “Mm. Nice,” he said as he picked up the evening Clarion, the village newspaper, and pretended to be fascinated by a front-page story.
“Is that all you can say?” She bent down to straighten her stockings. “More and more they say clothes rationing is inevitable, and I’ve got to get myself ahead of it. I have to work fast or, my gosh, I’ll simplyhave nothing to wear.”
Leslie laughed, having seen inside one of Caroline’s simplycavernous bedroom closets. “So what are you planning then? Going to buy up all the latest fashions in the shops?”
“Not a bad idea,” she said, smoothing down the red fabric over her slim hips. “I’ll be damned if I’ll do what that silly woman, Mrs. Sew-and-Sew, says on those even sillier posters we see everywhere now. Make do and mend.” She scoffed. “Never.”
“Uh-huh,” Leslie said, thinking his cousin had definitely missed her calling. She was made for high drama and perfect for a stage career. It was all in the appearance of things, how one presented oneself to the world.Just what spies did. Fabricate and exaggerateAnything but tell the truth. Their lives depended on it. “And just where will you wear this lady love song?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She frowned. “I can always count on you, Les, to be brutally honest.”
“Was I being brutal? Sorry, love.” His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose and he pushed them back with a finger, a habit he knew drove his cousin round the bend. “Can’t you afford to get them mended or purchase new frames?” she often said, and he’d reply, “There’s a war on or hadn’t you noticed?” His answer to everything these days, and it usually worked, except where Caroline was concerned.
She slumped down in a wingback chair across from him and stretched her feet out toward the fire. “Maybe to Mrs. Armstrong’s garden party. Wear the dress, I mean. If the old lady ever has another one. So difficult nowadays to plan large get-togethers. You never know who’ll actually turn up.”
“With the war on,” he added and she smirked back at him.
“Let’s have a drink. I know it’s barely half-past three, but somewhere it’s the cocktail hour.”
“Seems to get earlier every night. Make mine a double anything.” He gave a heavy sigh and dropped the newspaper on the floor.
“That bad,” she said.
“Pretty much. I miss Edward and I’m—”
“Bored. Yes, I’ve noticed.” She got up and went over to the drinks table, poured them each three fingers of gin and a touch of vermouth, then handed him his glass. She perched on the corner of his chair. “I know, love, it’s not what you thought life with Edward would be.”
“Life without Edwardyou mean.”
‘Now, now.” Caroline put her arm round his shoulder and gave him an affectionate hug. “He’s on a special mission and you know the risks. He told me before he left he’d rather know you’re safe in the country with me than living in a war zone.”
“He said the same to me,” Leslie said, and then sighed again. Dammit. “I miss him so much.”
“I know. And you absolutely must keep your relationship a secret. Edward could lose his job, and quite possibly more than that given the sodomy laws these days. Primitive to say the least.”
“Oh, bugger the damned laws,” he said.
“Precisely. You’ve got the right idea.” She gazed pensively into the fire. “Why, I might go find myself a girlfriend just for spite.”
“That,” Leslie said, “will happen dear heart when hogs fly.”
“It’s pigs.”
“Same thing.”
“And you absolutely can notgo on his missions with him,” she said, “especially not this one.”
“You people are all alike.”
“What people, dear?” Caroline narrowed her eyes and gave him what he knew was her ‘I’m about to scold you’ expression, her voice almost motherly in tone.